


so if you don't rate, just overcompensate

by fakefish



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Getting Together, M/M, debatably humor, morosexual fashion icons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-02 10:39:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19197136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fakefish/pseuds/fakefish
Summary: Aziraphale's wearing a leather jacket. Crowley's a bit perturbed.





	so if you don't rate, just overcompensate

**Author's Note:**

> a short n sweet(?) 2k gig to get me back into stuff after not writing anything for a year. title lyric from "pretty fly (for a white guy)" because if that song isn't on the aziraphale/crowley playlists i know y'all have, you're cowards.

Crowley walks into the bookshop, and the few visitors already inside all conveniently find themselves remembering that their stoves were left on. It ends up being very fortunate, because as soon as Aziraphale emerges from the back to greet him, Crowley feels he might spontaneously combust.

Aziraphale’s wearing a leather jacket.

Crowley can’t even collect his thoughts enough to make an honest assessment of his appearance, too dumbstruck by the sheer weirdness of it all. On someone else, it might not be shocking – like a history professor who motorbikes to campus – but on Aziraphale it’s bizarre.

“What do you think?” Aziraphale asks, seemingly oblivious to Crowley’s dropped jaw. He turns a little to show off his side silhouette. “I thought it was worth trying.”

Crowley finally shakes himself out of it. “Since when do you wear black?”

“Never, usually, save for that magician’s act way back when.” Aziraphale straightens his lapels. “But I thought I might take a page from your book and, ah, try some new styles.” He glances at Crowley. “You haven’t said what you think.”

“I think it’s very – new,” Crowley hazards.

Aziraphale’s face falls. “Bad?”

“No, no,” Crowley hurries to say, “not _bad,_ just different. I wouldn’t have taken you for the adventurous type.”

Aziraphale raises his eyebrows.

Crowley concedes with a tilt of his head. Aziraphale continues to fiddle with his jacket, and Crowley’s feet take him forward of their own traitorous accord. Before he can stop himself, he’s adjusting the front of Aziraphale’s jacket and shifting the fabric over his shoulders. It seems a touch large for him, but the effect is less unflattering and more –

No, it won’t do him any good to think of that.

Crowley steps back, but not before Aziraphale gives him that one smile that makes Crowley feel like he’s been knocked back on his ass. It really is fortunate that he’s had to adopt a chronic sunglasses habit. Snake eyes are the window to the soul, and all that.

“Are we still on for lunch? I’m quite in the mood for Italian, if you’d like.”

Crowley nods and steps aside so Aziraphale can move past him. It brings him close enough that Crowley can pick up on the smell of leather mixing with Aziraphale’s ever-present sweetness. Then he stops smelling him, because that’s a bit creepy.

“After you, angel.”

**

The experiment with the leather jacket proves to be short-lived, as Aziraphale’s back to his usual cream coat a few days later. Crowley only gets a moment to feel relieved, though, because less than a week passes before he pulls the Bentley up along the curb to find Aziraphale waiting in snakeskin cowboy boots.

Crowley stares at them while Aziraphale climbs into the passenger seat. Once Aziraphale is settled, seatbelt carefully buckled in, he looks up at Crowley.

A few seconds of silence pass before resignation passes over Aziraphale’s face. “I suppose that’s a no to the boots, then?”

Crowley groans. “ _Why_ the boots _?_ They don’t go with your outfit at all.”

Aziraphale sniffs. “Fashion is a relatively new realm for me – not to say I haven’t lived through some changes, but I’ve very little experience with the explorative elements of it.” He shrugs. “You’re much more well versed in that area, so I thought, well.”

It takes Crowley a second to get it. Then he grins. “Angel.”

“Don’t.”

“ _Angel,”_ Crowley purrs. “You’ve been _copying_ me?”

“I merely said you’re experienced.” Aziraphale is looking resolutely _not_ at Crowley, but it’s easy to see the red flush take his cheeks, his ears. It’s charming.

“No, no, don’t be embarrassed. I’m flattered.”

Aziraphale hides his face in his hands. “You are actively trying to embarrass me.”

Crowley keeps grinning. “Yes.”

Aziraphale sighs, hand going for the door handle. “I’ll go in and change into my—”

Crowley hits the door lock.

“Dear.”

“No, wear them,” Crowley says, turning the key in the ignition. “Maybe they’ll grow on me.”

Aziraphale slumps back into his seat. “You’re impossible.”

Crowley laughs, then floors it.

**

It keeps happening.

Aziraphale in the park in a sharp black suit, carefully eating a vanilla cone while Crowley tries not to stare.

Aziraphale at the Ritz, forgoing his usual blue pops of color for red while Crowley tries not to stare.

Aziraphale in a cozy gray sweater, hands wrapped around a mug of tea as he checks inventory while Crowley – anyways. Crowley doesn’t know what to think of it. 

**

On a clear, warm evening near the end of August, Crowley goes again to Aziraphale’s bookshop and opens the door to find him in sunglasses.

“What do you think?” Aziraphale asks, grinning. “I thought well, out of anything I could try, you’d get the biggest kick out of these.”

Crowley arches a brow. “Sunglasses indoors? Really?”

He can’t see Aziraphale’s eyes, but he still knows he’s rolled them. “Scant critique, coming from you.”

“Well.” Crowley doesn’t know how to rebut that, so he raises the vintage he’s holding instead. “Does red sound good?”

Aziraphale smiles, finally taking off the sunglasses, and Crowley’s strangely relieved to see his eyes again. “Red sounds delightful.”

**

They make their way through the vintage and end up opening an aged cabernet not long after. Crowley’s draped himself across the ratty couch usually covered in books, and Aziraphale is slumped in his desk chair. The sunglasses are back on his face, seemingly because he’s trying to make a point, and Crowley has had about enough of them.

“I don’t like those,” Crowley says, waving his hand vaguely in Aziraphale’s direction. “Th’don’t suit you.”

Aziraphale’s lower lip pushes out just a bit. Crowley may be staring at it. “Why not? Why shouldn’t they suit me?”

“They cover too much,” Crowley mumbles, too drunk to stop himself but too aware of the situation to look at Aziraphale while he says it.

“What do you _mean?_ They’re just glasses. You wear them all the time, and you’re hardly conservative.”

“I mean your eyes,” Crowley says. He feels hot, like the licks of hellfire are brushing his face. Fuck. “You shouldn’t cover your eyes. I like your eyes.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale says, almost too soft to hear, and nothing else. Crowley turns his burning face into the fabric of the armrest. Silence settles over them, and Crowley wonders if they’ve drunk enough for even a divine being to forget what he’s said by the next morning. It’s a bit optimistic.

Aziraphale clears his throat. “I mean, well.”

Crowley shifts just enough to peek over at him. Aziraphale doesn’t look mad, more – bashful, perhaps? “Well, what?” He says, a little snippy.

“I mean. I like to see your eyes, too. Even when we’re alone, you wear your sunglasses too much for my taste.”

Crowley snorts. “My eyes are terrible.”

Aziraphale tilts his head a little to the side. The wine has affected his complexion as well, it seems. “No, your eyes are –” He stops himself, then takes a hurried drink, draining the precious few drops of cabernet left in his glass.

“Terrible, yes, I said so.”

“Not terrible, no. Not at all.” Aziraphale shakes his head. “Crowley, your eyes are lovely.”

Crowley closes his eyes. “You’re just saying that.”

“I’m not, Crowley.” Aziraphale just looks sad, now, and Crowley doesn’t like that at all. “You think your eyes are terrible? Oh, dear. I’ve been an awful friend – had I known, I would have told you how I felt about them millenia ago.”

Crowley won’t hope. “Fond of snakes?” He jokes, turning his face back into the armrest.

“In a way.” He hears Aziraphale moving, then feels the couch dip next to him. “I suppose I must be, since I’m terribly fond of you.”

Something turns in Crowley’s stomach. It’s unpleasant and pleasant all at once. “You’re a sap,” he says, hating himself a little.

Silence again. A few minutes pass. At some point, Aziraphale’s started running his thumb over Crowley’s exposed ankle.

“Did I ever tell you why I started dressing differently?”

Crowley hums. “You wanted to experiment.”

“I mean, yes, that’s the main part of it, I suppose. Experimentation. But it’s also, it’s, uh, more than that,” Aziraphale babbles, “it’s just – well, you know. Armageddon almost happened. The world almost ended, and there’s still so much to see, to experience, and I may be well traveled in regards to cuisine and art and theatre but fashion is a realm I’ve very much neglected.”

Crowley can’t help a laugh. “Angel, I’ve been trying to tell you that for years.” He shifts so he’s twisted enough to see him. “It took you the end of the world to agree with me.”

Aziraphale smiles. “I guess so.” He squeezes Crowley’s ankle. “It’s just – not just fashion. There’s so much left to see, to _do_ , Crowley.” His eyes go softer still. “I want us to see it all.”

Crowley’s heart thumps a little painfully at the _us._ “I’m happy that we can,” he says, too honest by a half.

Aziraphale’s cheeks dimple more, and Crowley can maybe admit, _internally,_ that he loves him. Just a little. A touch. A bit.

God give him strength – he loves him more than anything.

Aziraphale, in the middle of Crowley’s very upsetting revelation, scoots closer, lifting Crowley’s legs and draping them over his lap.

“There are – ah, other things, that I’d like to try too.” Aziraphale bites his lip. “I’d like it very much if you were amenable to try them with me. Only if you’d like, of course.”

“New restaurant in town?”

“Oh, no – well, yes, actually, there’s a curry place down the street that I’ve heard lovely things about. But that isn’t what I mean.”

Crowley waits for Aziraphale to finish, then makes a valiant effort to sit up when he doesn’t. It brings him remarkably close to Aziraphale, but that’s fine, really. “Spit it out, then. We’ve only got all of eternity left, after all.”

Aziraphale’s eyes go a little dreamy. “We do,” he breathes, leaning closer still. Crowley nearly goes cross-eyed keeping eye contact. Normally he wouldn’t go to all the trouble, but considering the mood shift, he’s feeling particularly motivated.

“Aziraphale?” Crowley whispers.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale responds. “If I’m to believe different media I’ve consumed on the topic, the most romantic thing to do right now would be to kiss you straight on, but I feel as if I should get your consent first, so—”

“Yes,” Crowley interrupts. “You – yes.”

Aziraphale blinks. “Yes?”

“ _Yes,”_ Crowley hisses – which he would feel bad about if not for the previously established comfort with snakes – and grabs the lapels of Aziraphale’s stupid, fussy coat to yank him those last few inches, because he’s too eager to kiss him to bother with pulling him vaguely downwards.

**

Crowley traces his fingers down along Aziraphale’s spine – they didn’t have sex, because that seemed a bit too much all at once, but Aziraphale did at least concede to being shirtless.

“You know, angel,” Crowley mumbles into Aziraphale’s bare shoulder, “I’ve got a few other clothing ideas for you.”

Aziraphale hums. “Do you?”

“Mhmm.” Crowley lets his hand wander a little farther, and it just so happens to land on Aziraphale’s ass. It’s right there, after all, he’d be a fool to waste the opportunity.

“Oh, _that_ sort of clothing,” Aziraphale laughs. “You know, I did wonder if you would be into that sort of thing. Ended up buying some, a while back – put them in a drawer upstairs.”

Crowley feels himself short-circuit. “You – what?”

“I feel it’s a bit soon to go for all of that,” Aziraphale continues, seemingly oblivious to how he’s flipped Crowley’s entire world. “Another time, perhaps.”

“I.” Crowley blinks. “Yes.”

“Wonderful.” Aziraphale kisses his neck, short but sweet, before tucking his face into Crowley’s neck. “Are you comfortable, dear? I’d suggest we go to bed, but I don’t think I want to move.”

“That’s fine,” Crowley says, feeling a little faint. “We can stay.”

 

 

 

EPILOGUE

 

“I can’t _believe_ you!”

“I didn’t realize you meant you’d bought _pajama pants,_ Aziraphale!”

“You. Couch. _Now._ ”

"Please, angel—"

Aziraphale slams the bedroom door in Crowley's face. Crowley sighs, and the new red thong he’d merely _suggested_ as a _possible_ plan for the evening falls from his hands. In all fairness, he probably should have seen that coming.

**Author's Note:**

> alternate epilogue (very explicit):
> 
> “hey angel man succ my dik,” crawley sayz
> 
> “i wuld consent to that on date 3,” sez azeerafel
> 
> “oh diggity!” shoots crowly. 
> 
> FIN


End file.
